NASA Shares Stunning Time-Lapse Of Exploding Star 70 Million Light Years Away
The supernova titled SN 2018gv was first spotted back in January 2018. The US space agency had started tracking it using the Hubble telescope beginning next month. The goal was to observe the supernova in order to measure the expansion rate of the universe more precisely.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has once again managed to capture an iconic event in the cosmic universe. This time, the telescope captured a supernova, the self-detonation of a star in a galaxy located 70 million light-years away.
The snapshots clicked by the Hubble have now been released by NASA in the form of a time-lapse spanning nearly a year. The supernova can be seen in the spiral galaxy NGC 2525, first appearing as a blazing star before fading out completely.
Supernova SN 2018gv captured using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. (Image: NASA)
In a release, NASA says that the supernova titled SN 2018gv was first spotted back in January 2018. The US space agency had started tracking it using the Hubble telescope beginning next month.
The goal was to observe the supernova in order to measure the expansion rate of the universe more precisely. The mystery around the same could have acted as a key to understand the physical underpinnings of the cosmos.
Such supernovae also serve as a ¡°milepost marker¡± to measure distances between galaxies. Astronomers do this by comparing the actual brightness of the supernova with its observed brightness in the Earth¡¯s sky. This allows astronomers to measure the expansion rate of the universe.
"No Earthly fireworks display can compete with this supernova, captured in its fading glory by the Hubble Space Telescope," said Nobel laureate Adam Riess, of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and Johns Hopkins University.
The cosmic firework
In the release, NASA explains that the type of supernova seen in this sequence ¡°originated from a burned-out star.¡± Such a star is called a white dwarf that collects material from its companion star, eventually reaching a critical mass. At this stage, its core becomes hot enough to ignite a nuclear fusion, turning it into a ¡°giant atomic bomb.¡±
The thermonuclear runaway process eventually tears the dwarf apart, resulting in a short-lived cosmic as splendorous as the one we see here.
